Players Worth Some Worry in Dynasty Fantasy Football

Managing a dynasty fantasy football roster is hard work. It’s why so many people bail on teams and join new dynasty leagues. Yes, I know that hit you right in the feels:

Emotionally, doing a dynasty startup is easy because it’s fun and your team is obviously going to be good. But making decisions about a team you’ve already drafted — and have maybe already managed for a few years — is hard. because it means you have to be open to changing your mind about players you previously had conviction about.

With that said, here are three players to be concerned about in dynasty leagues as soon as 2022. To keep this interesting, I’ll choose big names who are not obviously on the downside of their careers.

Dak Prescott, QB, Dallas Cowboys

I am, perhaps, the fantasy world’s biggest Dak stan. So it physically pains me to include him here.

But I’m a little bit worried.

Dak Prescott’s 2021 comeback season was good by most accounts. He would have won Comeback Player of the Year if Joe Burrow hadn’t gone nuclear in back-to-back weeks at the end of the season.

But something was different about Prescott over the second half of the year. He was a fantasy QB1 in all but one week in Weeks 1-10, but then there was a five-game stretch Weeks 11-15 where he scored 6.8, 13.6, 12.1, and 14.8 fantasy points (with a 25.3 in there to break things up). He tossed at least 3 TDs in all but one game Weeks 1-6, then it didn’t happen at all in Weeks 9-15. But then he went nuts over the final three weeks of the season, with 12 total TDs.

In other words, it was a little bit of a Jekyll-and-Hyde act. 

On the whole, of course, it was a great season. He finished as a top-six fantasy QB. But the inconsistency with CeeDee Lamb got frustrating. Ditto for Amari Cooper. And Ezekiel Elliott’s best days are far behind him.

In the end, Prescott is still a Tier 2 dynasty QB. But of the other QBs in the Tier 2 group, he seems the least likely to make the leap to Tier 1.

Chris Godwin, WR, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Chris Godwin enters free agency with a torn ACL and the loss of Tom Brady as his QB. Yes, he thrived with Jameis Winston too, but Winston’s YOLO-ball style was a fantasy godsend. The next chapter for Godwin — whether in Tampa or elsewhere — feels like a huge unknown.

Godwin still checks in toward the bottom of Tier 3 dynasty WRs, but it’s not impossible to see a world where he ends up as some team’s Jarvis Landry 2.0. 

In short, Godwin has been in the best possible spot for fantasy the last several years. That’s going to change regardless of if he actually changes teams. Add in the ACL tear, and you’re looking at a player whose best fantasy days may already be behind him, as sad as it is to say.

Saquon Barkley, RB, New York Giants

The Giants are reportedly exploring trade partners for Saquon Barkley. That’s rarely a good sign. Barkley, of course, does not make the bottom-feeding Giants any better by himself, so attempting to trade him away for draft capital actually makes a lot of sense.

But will he be viewed as damaged goods?

Barkley’s 2021 season was asterisked by injury, because even when he was on the field, he was so inefficient, you couldn’t tell the different between Barkley and Devontae Booker.

(That’s Booker and Barkley from last year.)

It’s hard to argue against anyone that says getting out of New York would actually be good for Barkley. But forgive me for not going too crazy about an RB who has done nothing significant in fantasy since 2018.